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Talk:Timeline/@comment-109.240.30.58-20160719080257
Both this article and the one on Gamepedia calculate some years wrong. It's worth noting that Sapkowski never states any exact years anywhere in the saga. Only time he gives the year something happens is in Season of Storms - 1245 - but that's gotta be wrong, given that Dandelion appears in the novel as an adult. In Blood of Elves, Dijkstra states that Dandelion is "almost forty" (and we have no reason to assume he's wrong), then we can assume that Dandelion is roughly 37-39 years of age by those events. If the Season of Storms took place in 1245, then Dandelion would still be in his teens - and it's already been some time since his and Geralt's first encounter shortly before the events described in the short story the Edge of the World, meaning he would have been 13-17 years old in that short story. Implausible. So, Season of Storms happening sometime in 1249-51 rings more true. Now, to the more important question - how old is Ciri by the time the Lady of the Lake ends? If we can find the answer to this, we can calculate most remaining dates and years across the books. Most agree that she's at minimum 14, at most 16. But there's no need to guess, since Sapkowski *does* give us the means to calculate her exact age. All we need for that is stated in the fourth novel, the Tower of the Swallow. In that novel, Crach an Craite recalls a skating contest between his son Hjalmar and Ciri that took place when Hjalmar was 15 and Ciri was "almost twelve". We also know from the very same narration that the contest took place in the same year as the Slaughter of Cintra, some months before. So, let's sum up: The skating contest took place in winter and the Battle of Cintra was in the following summer. And Ciri was born on Belleteyn, which is a springtime festival. So Ciri turned 12 on the year the skating contest took place and Cintra was sacked. This is not speculation or estimation, it comes from Sapkowski himself. Crach also states that Hjalmar is now (as in, the time the Tower of the Swallow takes place) 19 years old. And earlier in the same book, Hotsporn notes that Ciri is "not yet sixteen". It's also stated clearly in the Tower of the Swallow that most of the events described in the book take place during autumn, over the months from August to October, to be exact. So Ciri has already had her birthday that year. For all this to match, the Tower of the Swallow must take place in the year Ciri has turned 15. Ciri is not 16, it's stated plainly. And if she was 14 by then, then Hjalmar would have aged too fast to be 19. So both this wiki and gamepedia get either Ciri's birthyear or the year of the Battle of Brenna wrong. If Ciri was born in 1251, then the tower of the Swallow would take place in 1266, and the Battle of Brenna is the next spring, in 1267. However, for Ciri to be born in 1253, then the Tower of the Swallow takes place in 1268, and the Battle of Brenna is in 1269. For the Battle of the Brenna to take place in 1268 as these wikis claim, Ciri's birthyear should be 1252. Consequently, Yennefer's birth year is also wrong, depending of the year Ciri was born. It should be either 1172 or 1174. And A Question of Price naturally happens either in 1250 or 1252. And oh, in the fifth novel, the Lady of the Lake, when Geralt meets with certain character he last met in the A Question of Price, said character claims it's been sixteen years since that encounter. I guess this was used as basis for calculating the date between Pavetta's betrothal day and the Battle of Brenna. But a simple detraction leads to miscalculation, since Pavetta was already a couple of months pregnant in that story. So A Question of Price likely takes place roughly half a year before Ciri is born, in late autumn or early winter. So if the Battle of Brenna happened close to Ciri's 16th birthday, it's been about 16 and half years since this character and Geralt last met, making the statement fully factual. That's the final nail in the coffin. The Battle of Brenna and Ciri's day of birth can't be 15 or 17, but exactly 16 years apart. Therefore: If Ciri was born in 1251, then the Battle of Brenna was in 1267. And if Ciri was born in 1253, then the Battle of Brenna was in 1269. And if the Battle of Brenna was in 1268, then Ciri was born in 1252. I rest my case. Moving on to heavy speculation now, which is required to get CDPR's dates fit with those of the novels. Let's start by assuming that Ciri was born in 1251. It's worth noting that CDPR does not state at the beginning of the first Witcher game that it's been five years since the "Battle of Brenna", but the "Great War". So it could technically mark any point during the war. Also, we don't have to assume that the entirety of the first Witcher game takes place in 1270. It could be that Geralt is found near Kaer Morhen in late 1270, the Witchers winter at the keep, nursing Geralt to health, and the Salamandra assault happens in the next spring. That way, the main events of the game take place in spring 1271, the Witcher 2 takes place in summer-autumn 1271 and the Witcher 3 begins in next year. This puts a four-year gap between the events of the books and the games, which could be considered close enough if you suspend your disbelief. Only contradiction to the four-year gap apart from the opening crawl is that Zoltan claims he hasn't seen Geralt in five years when they meet in the game. It's off the top of his head and he's excited to see his friend again, so maybe he's rounding up? However, I again remind you that very little in the way of exact years is given in the books. So if you place Ciri's birth in 1250 instead of 1251 or 1253, all of these dates match... The Slaughter of Cintra is in 1262, events from the Time of Contempt to the Tower of the Swallow take place in 1265, the Battle of Brenna is in 1266 and the first Witcher game takes place in 1271.